Narrative:

Aircraft X was an IFR arrival on instrument approach; outside the FAF; talking to dto tower. Aircraft Y was a VFR helicopter on departure from dto. Aircraft Y called me 2 miles north of the airport heading direct to the FAF requesting the procedure turn for the VFR practice approach. Our LOA with dto authorizes the tower to conduct practice approaches. Procedures and letter to airmen specify that separation is not provided to vfrs conducting practice approaches. It seems clear to me that the proper handling of this situation was for tower to keep both aircraft on their frequency and exchange traffic/issue safety alerts as necessary since they were both headed to the same fix at the same altitude. I reported this potentially critical safety lapse to management and qa told me there was no problem since the helicopter was VFR. This makes no sense to me. To ever send two aircraft to the same fix and altitude and put one of them on somebody else's frequency is creating risk. I at least think we should have had communicated with the tower to come to a mutual understanding of what constituted good service and expected performance. Qa does not agree and told me what dto did was fine because aircraft Y was VFR. I contend that this is not acceptable; because at the very least it creates an immediate safety alert situation that I have to deal with; ignoring all the rest of my traffic. This item also came up as a mandatory review for the daily 2 hour tarp review and the 'resolution' was that there was no loss of separation; so case closed. There was no near midair collision because I took the helicopter off his request. That doesn't mean there is no performance issue. If dto tower thinks they are doing a good job by switching this converging; same altitude traffic to another frequency; this needs to be addressed. Our qa won't do this. Recommendation; as a minimum; expectations about safety alerts and practice approach responsibility needs to be clarified between the facilities.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: D10 Controller voiced concern regarding the approach procedures used at DTO involving IFR vs. VFR traffic; indicating known potential conflicting aircraft are sometimes assigned different frequencies.

Narrative: Aircraft X was an IFR arrival on instrument approach; outside the FAF; talking to DTO Tower. Aircraft Y was a VFR helicopter on departure from DTO. Aircraft Y called me 2 miles north of the airport heading direct to the FAF requesting the procedure turn for the VFR practice approach. Our LOA with DTO authorizes the Tower to conduct practice approaches. Procedures and Letter to Airmen specify that separation is not provided to VFRs conducting practice approaches. It seems clear to me that the proper handling of this situation was for Tower to keep both aircraft on their frequency and exchange traffic/issue safety alerts as necessary since they were both headed to the same fix at the same altitude. I reported this potentially critical safety lapse to Management and QA told me there was no problem since the helicopter was VFR. This makes no sense to me. To ever send two aircraft to the same fix and altitude and put one of them on somebody else's frequency is creating risk. I at least think we should have had communicated with the Tower to come to a mutual understanding of what constituted good service and expected performance. QA does not agree and told me what DTO did was fine because Aircraft Y was VFR. I contend that this is not acceptable; because at the very least it creates an immediate safety alert situation that I have to deal with; ignoring all the rest of my traffic. This item also came up as a mandatory review for the daily 2 hour TARP review and the 'resolution' was that there was no loss of separation; so case closed. There was no NMAC because I took the helicopter off his request. That doesn't mean there is no performance issue. If DTO Tower thinks they are doing a good job by switching this converging; same altitude traffic to another frequency; this needs to be addressed. Our QA won't do this. Recommendation; as a minimum; expectations about safety alerts and practice approach responsibility needs to be clarified between the facilities.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.